Faith
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Iffat Mirza, Raynes Park As a child, being a Muslim in the West meant seeing my friends gasp as I told them Christmas is just an ordinary day for me. It meant explaining to my friends that I’m content with not receiving presents at Christmas. Then I grew up and I realised that’s probably the…
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Dur-e-Shewar Anwar, Manchester ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’ have long been pitted against each other. Western society being censured for its material temptations and so-called progressive principles by one camp. Meanwhile Islam is branded an oppressive, backwards religion out of touch with and out of place in a modern, dynamic Western society by the other. As…
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Nadia Ghauri, Oxford The ‘West’ is a nebulous concept; at times glorified as a model of modern civilisation, and at others, denigrated as superficial and morally corrupted. I grew up in a small, rural city in southern England. Naturally, as a Muslim of Pakistani heritage I would feel out of place in a city that…
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Yusra Dahri, Surrey For as long as I can remember, I have been living here in the UK. I grew up in full view of the passing train and formidable trees. On the terrace I stood in awe of the mosque next to me. From my bedroom window, I could see the tip of a…
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Aroosa Akram, Slough It is common knowledge that atheism is disbelief in God, however atheism in its general and basic form is the lack of belief in all deities. This is of course the opposite of theism in which all classical theistic religions like Islam, Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism believe that there is a…
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Nadia Ghauri, Oxford The divine concept of God has long perplexed mankind. Yet through the Holy Qur’an and His Messengers, Allah the Exalted has provided us with a wealth of material that aids our understanding of His supreme and unmatched qualities. Rabb is the second most prevalent term for God in the Qur’an after the…
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Iffat Mirza, Raynes Park One word that a book-lover stumbles upon in life often is ‘timeless’. We often talk about certain books having a persisting influence over the centuries. Reading, for me, has never just been a hobby. For hours upon hours I would devour books. It ultimately culminated in my opting to do a…
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Aroosa Akram, Slough The Islamic principle of modesty is an essential part of faith and it concerns a Muslim’s physical and mental state. To fully understand the importance of modesty, ‘haya’ (حیاء) in Arabic, let us look at its meaning in some detail. The word ‘haya’ comes from the Arabic word of ‘hayat’ which means…
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M Rehman, Cheam Part I ‘Have they not travelled in the land, so that they may have hearts wherewith to understand, or ears wherewith to hear?…’ (Holy Qur’an 22:47) Allah the Almighty in the Holy Qur’an encourages all Muslims to travel and observe the world around them. And by His grace, I was given the…
Voice of British Muslim Women 